


easy to love

by elodiej



Category: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: Accidental Kissing, Alternate Universe - Regency, Dancing Lessons, Hand & Finger Kink, Huddling For Warmth, M/M, Slow Burn, Slow Dancing, Touch-Starved, anachronistic prosthetic design, gender non-conforming fashion, governess au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-14
Updated: 2016-12-15
Packaged: 2018-08-14 15:24:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8019190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elodiej/pseuds/elodiej
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Kurogane meets the Kinomotos' new tutor, Fai Flowright, they accidentally kiss when a greeting misfires. Everything goes downhill from there. Pseudo-regency AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [robinauts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/robinauts/gifts).



> This is not true Regency - it's set in a fantasy world without even an England, and neither does homophobia or particularly gendered fashion exist, because I like it better that way. But I have tried to include all the best pining and touch related tropes, along with a more Victorian governess situation, and other favorites beside. It is definitely the most self-indulgent thing I have ever written.
> 
> Dedicated to Rob, without whom I would not have had the motivation to even start writing this, much less complete it, and whose enthusiasm and art has kept me going in more ways than one.

I.

Of all the horrors of returning to civilian life in the country, a welcoming party was Kurogane’s least favorite. He wasn’t unhappy with his new lot in life - looking after Tomoyo in her sister’s absence and managing the Daidouji affairs and heading the local constabulary - but to have to stand and endure polite, meaningless conversations and entreaties to dance from dusk to dawn was cruel.

“How are you going to protect us if you don’t know us?” Tomoyo had asked from around his ankles where she was pinning the hem of his dress pants into place. He protested that he didn’t need to attend parties to protect people in the military and got an _accidental_ pin in his calf for the insolence. Tomoyo could tease all she liked, but he wasn’t incapable of love; it was only that love at a distance suited him best.

Adding insult to injury, he wasn’t the only reason for that evening’s event, and few things provoked his distaste of gilded ceremony than having to humor the few folk who passed through Fairhaven to visit lesser relatives or refresh themselves after the hustle and bustle of city life. So much planning and playacting did little but remind him of why he had left in the first place. All around ladies and gentlemen were dressed to the nines, in high-waisted ethereal dresses and layered waistcoats and long evening jackets with starched, high-collared shirts for those men and women who like Kurogane hadn’t the patience for skirts and girdles and whatever else the effortless floating dresses required. This evening’s other excuse was the center of attention, his long gown trimmed with blue ribbon at the bust and layers of lace below it, his long hair done up in an intricate high bun, fluttering a matching painted fan to hide sickly-sweet smiles and laughter directed at that moment at Tomoyo.

Kurogane did not protest when she motioned him over, because long experience had taught him that arguing with her, especially in public, rarely ended in his favor. The sooner introductions were made the sooner goodbyes could follow.

She took him gently by the elbow and guided him to face the newcomer, who shimmered in the bright candlelight below the chandelier of the ballroom. “Kurogane, this is Fai Flowright, who recently returned from two year’s study in County Nevers across the sea to be tutor for the Kinomotos. Fai, this is Colonel Kurogane Suwa, my cousin, and head of both my estate and the constabulary here. I thought you two might have a great deal to discuss since you’ve both recently come back to Fairhaven.”

Kurogane bowed a little at the waist as Tomoyo said his name and tried not to scowl. He stepped forward to shake Flowright’s hand, but Flowright had already gone to his shoulders and Kurogane recalled the Celesian tradition of cheek-kissing too late. Flowright went up on his toes to bring their faces together and in a panic Kurogane closed his eyes as he turned his face to the right, slender fingertips resting on either side of his arm and Flowright’s breath on his face.

And then - Flowright’s lips on his as he leaned into the greeting with the weight of his panic.

Later Tomoyo would tease him for freezing up, for being ignorant of other cultures when she tried to throw him a bone in her introduction, for the expression on his face when he realized what had gone wrong. The gossip would follow him around town for weeks afterward, even from those not present for the event, and even Amaterasu would send a letter home with a lengthy and polite but scathing dressing-down of him based on Tomoyo’s account of the ball.

But in that one horrifying moment, he could do nothing but recoil backwards, Flowright’s hands slipping from their place at his shoulders down the entire length of his coat-sleeves as Kurogane retreated with haste. When he had opened his eyes he saw only Flowright’s wide-eyed expression and slightly parted mouth, so startlingly different from when he had flirted and glowed playing debutante earlier. The honest expression lasted only a fraction of a second before it was replaced with something smoother and cooler as he said, “Well, that’s one way to greet someone. I hadn’t realized customs here were so different,” more to Tomoyo than Kurogane.

Kurogane scowled and bit his tongue to stop himself from - yelling, maybe, or smacking the smarminess off Flowright’s pretty face, or any of the things he wished he were free to do. “Pleased to make your acquaintance,” he said, “but I have to be going now.” And turned face and made a swift line toward the exit, past the giggling socialites and hard stares of scandalized old women whose eyes he could not meet. Behind him, the silence he hadn’t realized had descended during the - _accident_ was replaced by chatter and gossip he suspected were about him and the newcomer, and as he left despite the hard-earned control he forced on his expression, hard as stone, the tips of his ears burned.

His horse was in the stable nearby, and on his way there he allowed himself a moment to be frustrated without filtering, the straps across his back shifting under the strain of wrangling his tense shoulders back into place. He breathed slowly, and then untethered his horse and mounted it. Briefly, he brought his own fingers to his lips, and paused, only to wipe at his mouth and nose vigorously with the back of his hand as if to scrub away the phantom feeling of someone else’s touch there.

Well. The party was over; no need to ever see that man again or his satisfied, knowing smile again, with any luck.

 

II.

The very next day, Fai found the colonel attending Tomoyo at the market.

He had barely settled into his new lodgings with the Kinomotos and had had no time at all to prepare any kind of lessons for Sakura, so she had convinced him to spend the afternoon in town shopping for groceries and necessities he might want or need. He had resolved to be formal, to be stern, to be whatever a good tutor should be, and had crumbled the moment she took his hands in her own and told him he should be happy and comfortable in her home and that she had wanted to go anyway and Touya was certainly not going to accompany her and she needed some sort of supervision to be allowed, and anyway if he was to be in charge of her studies he was responsible enough to be that supervision. So he had let her keep his hand and lead him on foot down the winding road through their lands and down the thoroughfare to the small town center that housed a few shops and residential buildings and the open market in the center square.

Fairhaven proper was small and labyrinthine, old stone houses built one on top of the other, with many back-alleys leading to dead ends and unexpected arches and tight corners, the divide between the town and the country a sharp, clear line as the houses just stopped at the border and greenery swallowed the scenery. The center market was the oldest and best-kept area, the only wide open space for socializing or selling, as centuries of building had swallowed all other streets and courtyards up to the perimeter.

When they arrived at the market to inspect apples and smell flowers and haggle for goods, it wasn’t as if he had been looking for Kurogane. After the previous night he had alternately wished to never see the man again and then to see him often, but it turned out Kurogane, amidst a crowd of common folk, drew eyes just by being present. He was only marginally more comfortable in the open air, still dressed with military precision and standing like he expected to be barking orders at those below him at any second. Or that he expected to be ordered around, which was an altogether more captivating concept. At the party he had been statuesque of form and face, but here he let himself scowl at this and that, looking away when Tomoyo chastised him, softening for brief hellos and pleasantries until he could go back to grimacing at the sunshine and good cheer. For someone whose career was about exacting control, Kurogane clearly had little of it, and he wondered what it would be like to see Kurogane lose control entirely.

Sakura squeezed his hand tighter as she leaned down to examine a bushel of pears, free hand at her chin as she considered their price and ripeness, and he let himself laugh loud and clear. Fai watched Kurogane fight through the crowd, trailing behind Tomoyo like a puppy.

His study was interrupted when Tomoyo lit up and made her way toward them, with Kurogane trailing and setting the full weight of his glare on Fai as they approached.

“Hello, Fai, Miss Sakura,” said Tomoyo.

“Hello, Tomoyo - and hello, Kurogane,” Sakura said, going red at the extra formality as Tomoyo tugged Fai down to kiss his cheek, left then right then left again. He was glad that the bending this required hid his face but regretted being unable to see the expression on Kurogane’s face as he watched what a greeting was supposed to look like. When he straightened again, Sakura and Tomoyo embraced and Kurogane was glaring instead into the far distance.

“I have _so_ many questions about your summer wardrobe - dresses and jackets and skirts and blouses, and the social - dear, you _have_ to come to the draper’s with me to choose the fabrics,” Tomoyo began, and by the time she had begun her list of fabric choices she had already compiled for Sakura’s next formal outfit they were nearly out of earshot, their elbows linked, only an apologetic backward glance and wave from Sakura as Tomoyo wheeled her away.

That left him alone with the fruit vendor’s wares and the colonel who had kissed him just the night before, and Fai shifted from foot to foot as he considered how best to extricate himself from this situation. Before he could settle on a suitably blithe reply Kurogane turned to him and had outstretched his right hand.

Fai stared for a long moment. Kurogane’s hands were broader than his own, and even though he wore the same dark gloves he had donned the previous night it was difficult not to read a lifetime through the fabric, calloused fingers from military work and hard labor, valleys of scars and an obvious strength that started there in his hands and was reflected everywhere else. As Fai’s eye traveled from Kurogane’s arm to his shoulder to his face, which was wrenched not entirely out of a scowl but moving in the direction of something more neutral, he realized he had been staring several beats too long. Fai’s own smile widened as he extended his arm and felt the same joyous laughter from before well up in him.

“So you do know how to properly greet someone,” he said. Kurogane’s gloves were of a finer quality than he had expected - silk smooth material wasted on something so utilitarian in appearance. The handshake was as firm as had suspected it would be, and appropriately brief, but it had an unexpected gentleness to it. He had known soldiers who approached greetings and dialogue like they waged wars, but this colonel wearing stark black gloves and obvious discomfort revealed a deceptive luxury and softness of touch.

“Hmph,” said the colonel.

“It’s good to know my first impression of you as a man of few words was inaccurate,” Fai said, bright as sunshine and cool as ice. “A man in possession of a good constabulary must be in need of some silence, I imagine - though surely there’s little trouble here in this quiet country.”

“It’s fine. It’s a good town.”

“Then why don’t you show me around your good little village since your cousin has whisked my ward away from me for the foreseeable future?”

Kurogane’s mouth twitched twice in quick succession, but he sighed and offered no protest. “If Tomoyo has gone fabric-hunting, it’ll be hours before she’s available again. If you’re too incompetent to explore by yourself, I suppose I’m duty-bound to do it.”

“Let’s go then,” said Fai, and offered his elbow, which Kurogane declined by way of shoving ahead and aggressively describing everything there was to see in curt, efficient terms.

The squat building with the hammer-and-anvil sign was the blacksmith’s, the corner with the woman and the flower basket was the flower peddler’s usual domain; this, the butcher’s; that, the dressmaker and draper’s where Tomoyo and Sakura had gone. That covered nearly everything that could be seen, and as they strolled to the outer edge of the courtyard Kurogane described the outer edges of the village where the craftsmen and their families lived. There was an inn closer to the river, and a graveyard to the south. The maze of buildings and streets had been due to an old wall that encircled Fairhaven in its earliest years to protect it from invasions, Kurogane explained, much more comfortable imparting military trivia than gossip about town life. Before the wall eventually fell into disrepair and all but disappeared, Fairhaven could only grow by building out to the wall and back in again, and after peace had reigned so long the wall was nearly forgotten, there ceased to be a need to grow or confront the nearly mythic outside-the-town at all.

Fai kept pace with Kurogane’s long strides as Kurogane explained the fabric of the town to him. Kurogane’s explanations revealed little about him other than that Kurogane tended to reveal little - just that perhaps he rarely interacted the village outside necessity, that he had no familial attachment presently here, and that he spent a lot of time away due to his profession and nature.He wanted to ask about Kurogane’s military career, his youth on the Daidouji estate, what Fairhaven’s people were like. But reciprocation would have asked too much, and when Kurogane appeared to exhaust all that he knew about the town, he asked, “Is Miss Tomoyo excited for the upcoming social?”

Kurogane stopped in front of the cider-seller’s booth where he had been inspecting a big barrel, just across from the draper’s. “Another one? Didn’t we just have your thing last night?”

“The next one isn’t for a fortnight, but that’s different than a formal introduction. Military service doesn’t excuse one from familiarity with social graces, I should think.” Even from where he stood, a little behind Kurogane, the cider did look good. He imagined rolling a barrel of it to a home that was not his in which he was to be tutoring his young charge and did not like the imaginary reception he received. “And all work and no play makes for a dull existence. Surely even in the military you had your celebrations.”

“In the military we celebrated, but not with dancing.” Kurogane did not turn around to look at Fai. “I doubt you’d enjoy that sort of celebration any more than I like Tomoyo insisting I spend an evening dancing when she knows I don’t dance and talking about nothing to people who hate me.”

Kurogane’s vagueness had a deliberateness about it that implied his sort of celebration was not polite enough to describe in public, of which Fai suddenly had a burning, impossible need to know the content. “Do you not enjoy dancing, Colonel?”

There was a long pause during which Kurogane pretended to stare at the one barrel of cider in front of him as if it held the answer to Fai’s question. “Never learned.”

“Pardon me, I couldn’t understand you - _what_ did you just mumble?”

“You - I said - dancing isn’t exactly part of military training, Flowright,” he said, and turned from the cider to stomp back toward Fai, glaring all the while.

“If you ever need lessons I am trained in all of the popular dances and even some of the more scandalous ones - I could teach you and Sakura at the same time! Perhaps you’d even learn how to greet a person without manhandling them. It’d be terribly inappropriate to try and position your hands for a dance and end up kissing yet another unsuspecting stranger. Is that why people dislike you so?”

“ _You_ manhandled _me_ last night,” Kurogane retorted, jerking his torso upward to raise to his full height as if one could win arguments by towering alone.

“If it pleases the kissing colonel to remember it that way, I won’t protest.”

Whatever Kurogane roared in response to that was nearly incomprehensible as all of his previously physically restrained anger was released in one single burst, and because even before Kurogane had begun to bellow and passersby turned their heads to the commotion Fai was already slipping through the crowd.

He had entertained the possibility that Kurogane might chase him, but in the moment of indecision before he had committed to the nickname, he hadn’t thought it a probable outcome. He certainly had not predicted that Kurogane would launch himself through the crowd with surprising dexterity, or the lightest brushes of fingertips against his shoulder, his back, and once, a tug at a strand of hair come loose from his low bun.

Kurogane stayed too close to him through the small crowds and sharp turns and increasingly narrow streets as Fai wove them between buildings and generally abused the purpose to which the architecture had been intended so as to avoid inconveniencing those who were ambling about, greeting neighbors and luring the more rural visitors to buy their wares. But the fewer the people, the easier it was for Kurogane to swipe here, lean in there, and when Fai turned a sharp corner to try and get a little advantage in their labyrinthine race he found himself facing a stone wall, and then he found himself embracing the stone wall, as Kurogane swung around the corner and full-body collided with him.

Between the effect of so much exertion and the sudden shock of impact, his ability to comprehend his present situation returned gradually in small pieces as he panted for breath: his own arms, thrown up around his face, sleeves catching on rough-hewn stone; the phantom weight on his chest from running so far, from the force of the collision; the real, not-hallucinated, pressing weight of Kurogane’s torso pressed along his back.

Kurogane, who was leaning what felt like his entire weight on Fai’s back, having caught himself awkwardly at the wall with his right arm next to Fai’s weight. Kurogane, who was also panting for breath as he stood and struggled for balance. It was some stroke of fortune the alley had turned out to be more of an alcove, or else they would have fallen to the ground which was a line of thinking Fai could absolutely not at all entertain at that second, not when Kurogane leaned in closer, his chin almost touching the side of Fai’s neck before using that leverage to right himself again. Fai inhaled slowly, twice, no longer out of breath from the running but in dire need of it anyway.

“You know, it’s considered polite to begin courting someone before you accost them in back alleys,” said Fai, and then turned around. “I thought Tomoyo had raised you better than that, you beast!”

Kurogane, now leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest, stared and scowled. “There is something really wrong with you.”

Fai smiled. “You’re a terrible suitor, Mister Muscles,” he said and moved to go past Kurogane out of the alley, waving one hand and waggling his fingers dismissively.

Before he could get back into the sun, Kurogane had grabbed his wrist mid-arc in one big, rough hand and tugged him back. “You’re bleeding.”

“So let me go take care of it,” Fai said, and tried to tug his arm away without success.

Instead, Kurogane moved more directly in front of him and plucked the pocket square from Fai’s breast pocket with his free hand. He twisted the hand on Fai’s wrist so that Fai’s palm turned upward to reveal the little trails of blood there from his impact with the stone wall. Suddenly it appeared to Fai as if it were someone else’s hand bleeding; he could feel the warmth of another person’s touch at his pulse, unfamiliar, but there was no sting, no gentle touch on his palms. Kurogane dabbed the blood away with a careful precision and the appearance of a softness Fai could not physically experience. It took seconds or minutes or hours - Fai’s sense of time fled with his sense of self, and the pocketwatch tucked in his waistcoat was impossibly distant in the unreality of the moment.

He wondered what his face looked like. Kurogane let go of one wrist, and slowly, like he was handling a spooked animal, reached for the other one to inspect it. Fai let him, his silence as close to assent as he was able to give. The blood on his left hand had rolled down his fingers, and Kurogane applied the same ghostlike treatment to it, holding his fingertips to clean the little red trails between them. Perturbed, Fai raised his eyes to Kurogane’s face so he would not have to bear being forced to watch such gentleness happen to someone else’s hand at the end of his own arm. Kurogane had scrunched his face up with the effort of concentration, shoulders tense and uneven with the exertion of controlling his prosthetic arm so precisely.

“You really are an idiot,” he said as Fai watched the shape of his mouth twist. Then Kurogane raised his eyes to meet Fai’s gaze, and the breath left his body all at once. Kurogane’s fingers were still on his own. Fai inhaled deeply, once, and then snatched his hand away without resistance and fled the little alcove. Kurogane did not follow.

Back in the sunshine, the warmth of the sunlight on his bare hands made the cuts painfully real again, the sensitivity of his hands to temperature a constant and frustrating counterpoint to their lack of sensation. But the very tips of his fingertips and the rings around his wrist where Kurogane had held him burned too, all the way home.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You are an exceptional specimen,” Flowright sighed, presumably to himself, “especially when you _keep your knees bent_ , there you go, and it’s not your fault you’re too good at being Captain Charming to be anyone else."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rob drew a beautiful [picture of Fai from the opening scene in his blue dress](http://flovvright.tumblr.com/post/150390257669/) which you should definitely check out because it is gorgeous. I forgot to mention last chapter that they let me use Fairhaven as the town name, which is from their wonderful olympfic [Setting Fire to the Sky](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7746451/chapters/17661706). County Nevers is a reference to the Havemercy book series which I forgot to change, and am now rolling with; if you like gay pseudo-period romance with a side of talking metal dragons, you'll love that series. (The next chapter is an homage to Roy and Hal's own adventures, as you'll see.)
> 
> I'll be aiming for new chapters every Wednesday, and I really can't thank everyone who's commented and given kudos enough. It's really helped get me through the week and commit to finishing this behemoth. Thank you so very much.

III.

After the incident in the marketplace, Kurogane was busy with home affairs and running errands for Tomoyo and all the other inconsequential demands of daily life. He had complained of Flowright to Tomoyo that evening, arms full of yards and yards of fabric that would in so little time become full-fledged dresses for her and Sakura. In his own jacket pocket he had stowed away Flowright’s handkerchief, having nearly discarded it in the alcove after bloodying it cleaning his cuts, but he thought better of it when he considered Tomoyo’s reaction to carelessly disposing of serviceable fabric.

“How is someone _that_ stupid supposed to be teaching _her_?” he had asked, shifting the bulk of the fabric to his right arm as his prosthesis sagged under the weight.

Tomoyo had only laughed and told him to be more polite, which as she had predicted only prompted more impoliteness and profanities for the entire journey back home.

One week later, she had finished the first version of Sakura’s dress and sent Kurogane to visit the Kinomotos to have her try it on to check for any final alterations before Tomoyo committed to the finishing touches. As he mounted his horse, Tomoyo had cheerfully called, “And hurry back, errand boy,” while waving her own handkerchief from the veranda to anger him into speeding all the way there, even though the Kinomotos were their nearest neighbors.

Yukito was tending the garden by the front entrance when he arrived and directed him inside with his usual warm cheer, confiding that Touya was in a mood and that he might wish to step cautiously. Kurogane declined his offer of tea and bit back a response that he was of the opinion that Touya was _always_ in a mood, and that he and Touya only ever commiserated over being in a mood together or grated heavily on each other’s nerves. He nodded in thanks out of deference to Yukito, who was too resolutely kind to tolerate hearing that.

Sakura, Yukito said, was studying in the solarium, and as Kurogane passed through the foyer and the great room he discovered to his great misfortune that she was not quietly reading there by herself in the afternoon warmth but was in fact in the middle of a lesson with her new tutor. Flowright dominated the conversation, speaking a language he could not fully place, Sakura parroting back short phrases. He stood by the fireplace in the next room listening for several minutes, wondering at the changed cadence and tenor of their voices, Flowright’s pitch rising and falling in a more dramatic range than his usual demure sarcasm like he was retelling a myth or legend.

The sound of furniture being dragged shook him out of his reverie, and he entered the solarium to find both teacher and student clearing the few chairs and small table stacked with books from the center of the room to its edges, creating a wide clear space in the middle of the floor. When Flowright spotted him standing awkwardly in the doorway, half-hidden by a large fern, he smiled with mischief dancing in his eyes and said something in that other language to Sakura again. She suddenly stopped fussing with the chair she had moved and turned around with a gasp, running over to Kurogane. She stopped just short of him and remembered herself, curtsied with well-practiced grace, and threw her arms around his waist.

“It’s been too long,” she said forcefully into his stomach.

Kurogane smiled down at her as he gently pried her out of the hug. “Not that long. Tomoyo sent your dress.”

She clapped her hands together and then, startled, turned sharply to plead with Flowright. “Oh! I’m sorry, our lesson - it’s just, I forgot Tomoyo was going to send my dress and I know she’s been working very hard on it and there’s only a week until it needs to be ready and even though she never complains it’s a lot of work to make a dress so fast and I’d feel really terrible if I made her and Kurogane wait so -”

Flowright laughed and said, “It’s alright, Sakura. Dancing lessons can wait until after you’ve tried it on.”

“Thank you! Oh, um,” she said, and then said what he presumed also meant _thanks_ in the language they had been speaking before. When she faced Kurogane again, she was grinning widely. “You should sit and talk with Fai while I’m trying this on. I’ll try not to take long.”

He passed the neatly folded package to her and watched her scurry out of the room, leaving him alone with Flowright.

“She’s a very sweet girl,” Flowright said, motioning Kurogane into the room and toward a chair which Kurogane did not sit in.

“She and Tomoyo grew up together,” said Kurogane, stiff-backed and trying not to betray any discomfort Flowright might seize upon as a potential weakness. “She’s always been a good kid. Even since you started teaching her who knows what.”

“Was the naughty colonel eavesdropping on dear, sweet Sakura’s lessons?” Flowright said, collapsing languidly into his own chair to regard Kurogane more pathetically from his lower vantage point. He looked entirely boneless, long limbs sprawling out of the chair’s confines, like a satisfied cat without any of the dignity.

“Don’t call me that. And even if I was, you weren’t saying anything I could understand, so it doesn’t matter. What _are_ you teaching her, anyway?”

“It’s Celesian, thank you, you uncultured heathen. The young lady has requested I teach her my, ah, native language, so when time allows we’ve been doing some simple lessons in it.” Flowright’s eyes lit up again, all bright clear blue and full of trouble. Lazily he waved one hand in a slow circle, his elbow propped at an absurd angle on the arm of the chair. “She’s told me _so_ much about you.”

Kurogane glared down at him and did his best not to fidget. The straps across his back were chafing from the ride over and carrying Sakura’s dress. “I don’t believe you.”

“It’s true!” he crowed, pointing all of his fingers toward the ceiling to tick them off as he talked. “You’re the cousin of her neighbors the Daidoujis, and you helped watch after her as a child when the older Kinomotos were traveling or otherwise busy. You joined the military terribly young and spent years and years away but always made time for her when you did visit, and she thinks your grumpy act is something for kids and that she’s too old for it now except it’s really cute and she can’t bring herself to tell you to stop in case it breaks your oh-so-delicate heart. I suggested you were suffering from a condition of acute, incurable grumpiness but she protested that. All the Kinomotos are nearly as fond of you as she is, in fact, even though Touya demonstrates it in imitation by being almost as grumpy as you, which is so sweet it gives me toothaches. You’ve never been further than a hundred miles from where you were born - here, just outside of Fairhaven - and you’re the worst dancer she’s ever seen, even though she’d never say it to your face so I have said it just now for her, you’re quite welcome.”

All of the things listed save the last were not only true but also sounded like things Sakura, ever kind, might confide in a new teacher. Damn her friendly nature - he knew next to nothing about this man and now Flowright was sat before him, grinning up at him contentedly and luxuriating in having the higher ground, metaphorically. “Are the Kinomotos paying you to gossip then? And I told you, I don’t dance.”

“I told _you_ , I’ll teach you.” He rolled up and out of the chair, propelling himself upright with only his arms, and gestured around the now-empty floor space. “I was going to teach Sakura some dances now, but seeing as she’s occupied for the time being I suppose you’ll have to do for a substitute. Come here.” And he outstretched his right hand.

Kurogane raised one eyebrow.

Flowright sighed dramatically. “It’s something to pass the time. And you might even learn something you could use to one-up Tomoyo when she tries to get you to dance next week.”

And damn him, but the idea of triumphantly whisking Tomoyo around the ballroom for the sake of her brief astonishment was too good to let pass by. “Alright,” he said, and stepped face-to-face with Flowright, and had the pleasure of watching his eyes widen slightly, the insincere gesture made binding. “But I get to ask a few questions while you’re doing this ridiculous exercise, since I’m doing you a favor while Sakura’s busy.”

“You drive a hard bargain, Sir Handsome -"

“ _Don’t call me that_.”

“- but I like that about you. It’s a clever price. Even though I’m the one doing you the favor here, I’ll even the scales once we get going. After all, I know _so much_ about you and you don’t trust me one bit. Now take my hand - like that, yes - and then your other arm cups my shoulder blade - _under_ my arm, thank you, good.” Flowright rested is other hand on Kurogane’s shoulder, his fingertips just brushing the seam of his jacket sleeve. The top of his head came to just under Kurogane’s chin in this position, so that if they came any closer they would have fit together like two adjacent puzzle pieces. “This is going to be just the basic step, since I don’t have the time to get anything more complex through your thick skull, but it should be manageable even for you. We’re counting _one_ two three, _one_ two three, _one_ two three. Lead with your left foot.”

With only mild complaint from Kurogane, Flowright guided him forward, then to the right, feet together; back with the right, to the left, and then starting point, feet together again. And then they repeated it, his index finger slowly meting out _thud_ thud thud, _thud_ thud thud with taps on Kurogane’s shoulder, Flowright counting in his own language under his breath. When Kurogane tried to look down to see what his feet were doing, Flowright flicked that tapping finger up to whack Kurogane in the nose and then swiftly returned it to its place all in time with the beat, which made Kurogane stomp straight downwards on the forward step with his big heavy feet, right onto Flowright’s foot. That halted them both while Flowright gently berated him, testing horrifically inventive new nicknames, before setting the pace again, a little faster and a little firmer now.

When Kurogane could follow the movement in time without missing a step or reflexively gazing down at his own feet, he said, “Why are you here?” to the top of Flowright’s head.

The finger on his shoulder stuttered for one solitary beat, though Flowright’s dancing remained impeccable as they drew slow, steady rectangles with their legs. “I see dancing hasn’t improved your social graces. But I did promise. I’m here to be Sakura’s tutor, since the Kinomotos agree she’s quite clever and in need of a wider range of studies than anyone nearby can provide. Tomoyo and I have a mutual acquaintance who passed along news of a tutor in search of steady work.”

 _One_ , two three, went the tapping. _One,_ two three. “Why leave where you were for here?”

“I’ve been traveling for a very long time now. I don’t stay in any one place for too long, and I’d grown bored of County Nevers. When I heard there was good work to be found in Fairhaven, I packed my bags and came here straight away. It isn’t complicated. Chin _up_ , I told you. Don’t let your arm droop.”

“It’s not drooping,” insisted Kurogane as he lifted his arm a little higher, squeezing Flowright’s hand as he went. He faltered on the backstep, but then Flowright was taking charge of their direction again and moving him to the correct side, and the steady beat drummed on. “Sounds like a stupid reason to up and move to me.”

“You are an exceptional specimen,” Flowright sighed, presumably to himself, "especially when you _keep your knees bent_ , there you go, and it’s not your fault you’re too good at being Captain Charming to be anyone else. There’s not exactly a Flowright estate for me to return to, and I wouldn’t care to even if there were, so traveling suits me. It doesn’t matter where you go when you follow the whims of fate."

Something about his name sounded different when its owner spoke it - something rounder in the vowels, a smoothness to the sound Kurogane could not place. He was seized with a desire to learn the exact shape of it, to trace that roundness with his own mouth and mirror it. He stamped that desire down immediately. “So when are you leaving?”

Without warning, Flowright lifted their conjoined hands on the backstep and spun himself under Kurogane’s arm as they completed the box step and seamlessly tucked himself back into position for the next _one_ two three, finger tapping as if he had never moved his hand at all. “Oh, you know,” he said, all breeze and no substance, face hidden. “However long Sakura needs me to teach her, I should think, but who knows?”

“As long as Sakura knows,” Kurogane said, “it doesn’t matter to me. Just don’t promise you’ll stick around if you know you won’t.”

That, unexpectedly, got a loud, long laugh in response, Flowright’s forehead drooping to nearly rest on Kurogane’s chest as he shook with the force of his laughter. “Darling, if there’s one problem I won’t be worrying over, it’s having people get too attached to me.” He did another twirl under Kurogane’s arm, and this time Kurogane was ready when he whirled back into position, raising his right hand as Flowright began to spin, Flowright’s fingers trailing over his own as he rotated smoothly. “Sakura is a perceptive young lady, and we spend a great deal of time discussing the results of my wanderlust. She knows what sort of person I am.”

Kurogane _hmphed_ and Flowright laughed again. “Down, doggy, heel. You can entrust the little lady to me, I promise. We’ll speed things up to distract you from your guard dog duties - let’s try a turn, hm?”

“I’m not some dog!” he protested, but he was already being guided into a quarter turn before he was done speaking, rotating them a little with each step they completed. This required not only a far greater concentration on where his legs were going, but also a very heightened awareness that the much wider strides meant that their legs were now very nearly interlocking on each diagonal, thigh brushing against thigh with each long, unsteady step. There was no spare attention for arguing about animal comparisons or anything other than his precarious grasp on balance, the guiding line of Fai’s arm, the feeling of a thigh barely brushing against his own.

If there was anything Kurogane truly hated, it was losing in contests of skill, which he began to understand Fai had long ago figured out about him, luring him into this entire farce with the fantasy of besting Tomoyo in her own domain. He had never particularly considered dancing as a skill at which one could win or lose, but despite leading he increasingly felt that Fai was intentionally aggravating him with a faster tempo and doing more complex rotations and twirls with each circuit back to the start. It was certainly nothing he had ever seen at any town social. He wanted to tell Fai how stupid it was to try and run away from someone you were whirling around with while attached at hand and hip. He wanted to get his arm from Fai’s waist to the increasingly disheveled low bun at the back of his head and take the hairpins out one by one while Fai turned and see what his long golden hair would look like when he spun.

What he did instead was attempt to twirl Fai on his own authority to establish some illusion of control or at least something closer to equality, but he must have tried to pivot him in the wrong direction because Fai rotated outwards and tripped over one of the chairs nearby, falling backward with wide eyes as he dragged Kurogane down with him by their still-clasped hands. With Fai gripping his good hand and his prosthetic not designed to catch his entire falling body weight, he landed squarely on top of Fai’s chest with a loud whooshing noise that he realized moments later was probably all of the air leaving Fai’s lungs at once.

Well. Served Fai right for trying to one-up him. A little bit.

As Kurogane raised himself onto his elbows to assess the damage, he first became aware of the incredible expression on Fai’s face, which appeared to be equal parts shock and hysteria and something else he had no time to analyze because the _second_ thing he realized was that lifting up had put his knee ever closer between Fai’s thighs and he would really have to mind the way he moved when he got up.

The third thing was that Fai’s eyes had darted toward the doorway, and when Kurogane followed over his shoulder he saw Sakura standing there, hands thrown up over her mouth and now dressed in Tomoyo’s gorgeous floor-length gown, complete with opera gloves and a thin, lacy jacket.

“I’m - um, I forgot my - shoes, I’ll be right back in a minute or maybe five minutes or ten I’m not sure where my, uh, where my shoes went to okay goodbye,” she said in one breath, and then fled with surprising dexterity given the length of the gown.

Kurogane sat up slowly, and removed his knee from the too-near vicinity of Fai’s groin - and what a small mercy to have avoided that disaster - to recline back on his folded legs. Fai’s eyes tracked the slow roll of Kurogane’s spine as he straightened, and then with a twist and a bounce Fai had launched himself onto his feet, straightening the chair he had fallen over and tidying the papers and books on the small table next to it which had been sent into disarray during their fall, his back to Kurogane.

“You really can’t dance after all,” said Fai to the books he was stacking and then restacking in a different order. “I’ll just - I’ll straighten this, and then Sakura must be ready by now so I’ll just go fetch her, alright? Wait here and try not to make a mess of anything else.”

As Fai moved toward the doorway, still facing away, Kurogane said, “Hey. Flowright.”

He paused, hand hesitating over the doorframe. When he finally turned around and Kurogane could see his face, it was the same blank mask he had worn at the party gazing back down at him, pleasant and vapid with an empty smile. Strands of loose hair dangled to frame his face, knocked out of place in the twirling and the fall; his collar was crooked and his shirt wrinkled, a button at his throat popped open.

Kurogane, still kneeling on the floor before Fai, made a half-hearted gesture toward his neck, his hair, but could not capture what he wanted with just the movement of one hand. Fai was too far away to fix his hair and shirt for him, and trying to cross that distance with words was no less difficult.

“Do you _need_ something, Colonel Klutz?”

Kurogane opened his mouth and then closed it again. Fai was staring, smile gone, and a lock of hair curled errantly alongside his cheek, too much distraction. “Thank you. For the dance. You’re not as bad of a teacher as I thought, so maybe Sakura might learn something from you after all.”

“Oh,” breathed Fai, who - _finally_ \- tucked the curling loose hair behind his ear. “You’re not quite as hopeless as I thought you’d be either.” Then he turned tail and left the solarium, leaving Kurogane to wait for Sakura’s dress with only the plants and the ghost of a body twirling against his own.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “My hands,” he said, and stopped to breathe. “I can use them again.” To demonstrate, he slid his fingertips down the back of Kurogane’s palm, down the length of his forearm, along the curves of his upper arm, and to the leather strap that wound around his shoulder. He traced the line of the strap, back and forth. “What about your arm? Will it be damaged by the rain?”
> 
> He did not look at Kurogane’s face, but he knew that Kurogane was looking down at him. “Go ahead and take it off, then.”

IV.

The weeks passed with parties and lessons and visits from friends. Kurogane continued to drop by periodically, bringing altered clothing for Sakura when Tomoyo was busy and refusing any further dance lessons, although it became habit to take their tea in the solarium whenever Kurogane appeared.

“I’ll go fetch tea. You and Kurogane wait here,” said Sakura, before Fai could slip away on the pretense of retrieving a book from his room or literally anything other than reliving the last time he was stuck in a room alone with Kurogane.

"How was your journey?" he said, shifting his weight from foot to foot as he waited for Kurogane to take a seat.

Kurogane continued to stand. "Fine."

“Does it look like it’ll rain today?”

“Hard to tell.”

“Ah.” The rising tide of anxiety began to sweep up from Fai’s stomach. “Would you like to sit?”

“No.” A pause. “Thanks.”

Fai considered the height of the solarium and the strength of the glass; it would be impossible to crash through it and escape on his own, but if he were to use one of the solid stone pots that housed the solarium’s many plants, it might give him enough weight to strike through -

“Here we are!” said Sakura, interrupting their silence with her good cheer and a tray of afternoon tea. “Syaoran had just finished making some and he told me we could go ahead and have this, which was really kind of him. Did you know he’s been teaching me how to ride a horse?”

No, neither Fai nor Kurogane knew that Syaoran was teaching her to ride, and Fai wondered if the Kinomoto parents knew. It was easier with her there, to interact and play at friendship. It was so simple to fall into the trap Sakura unknowingly set, coaxing them all into storytelling and banter over tea, weaving a sacred space together with warm smiles and warm drinks. She carried the conversation along when Kurogane and Fai could not sustain it. She told them about taking care of the horses with Syaoran, about Touya’s latest attempts to boss her around when their father was gone, about her slow but steady sewing progress her mother was overseeing as she worked on a gift for Tomoyo. She asked as many questions as she answered, and they prodded Kurogane together with pointed comments from Fai on his lack of work ethic or social skills into detailing his days managing the Daidouji estate, and a surprising amount of local gossip he had to suffer through as constable.

There, amidst the greenery in the afternoon sunshine, Kurogane came as close to relaxed as he ever was, slouching ever so slightly in the too-small iron chairs, though he never lost that strict military rigidity or his strange, stern honesty.

“Those damn sheep were all over the road,” Kurogane growled, his teacup raised halfway to his face and then lowered again as he visibly struggled not to spill it in his angry gesturing. “And that was the second time in two weeks I’ve had to go out and wrestle someone else’s sheep off the thoroughfare just because Kentarou and Takeshi are too scatterbrained to control a bunch of fluffy white assholes while Erii is gone.”

“ _Language_ , Colonel,” sang Fai. The back-and forth of Kurogane’s arm was hypnotic, the white delicate teacup in his large hand a captivating pendulum. Sakura joined in, giggling hysterically all the while. It became a frequent refrain ever after, and often as Kurogane tried to explain what domestic terror he’d had to face that week he would bring the tiny china teacup to his mouth to hide his frown behind it as he weighed his desire to strangle Fai with his respect for Sakura.

Other times, Sakura would turn the brunt of her charm onto Fai and coax him into spinning stories from his travelling days, which were easier to speak of than his time in Celes. He fell into the habit of describing different cities, their structure and their character, and the characters he had met there, mixing memory with fiction to illustrate the spirit of the adventure rather than the experience of living it, and to see Sakura’s delight and Kurogane’s distrust. It was too easy to invent stories whole-cloth and watch Kurogane quietly track the lies as he listened, but it was even better to tell the truth and slip in an inconsequential fictitious detail to see if Kurogane would notice that, too. Sometimes it would go without a reaction, but more often than not, he had the uncomfortable pleasure of the twitch of an eyebrow or a quirk of the mouth, little suspicions never fully articulated.

Kurogane’s visits were only sporadic, once or twice a week at best. Fai spent his free time either in the reclaimed library he had made his room, or by searching quiet company in the house or nearby. He visited Tomoyo not infrequently; as a mutual acquaintance of Yuuko’s, she had been his lifeline when he had arrived. She was always in the middle of working on something, working on clothing for sale or a gift, although her income as proprietor of the estate did not require her to work at all, and she was always glad to sit and talk while she sewed or share any interesting news from the town or from Yuuko she’d received. Tomoyo sent him home with colorful cravats and old dresses of Amaterasu’s which she insisted on altering for him, even if she was in the middle of another big project when he came calling. He protested that as a tutor he didn’t belong at any more high-society socials, that he had no need of such nice things. But she had arranged the joint introduction when he first arrived, and clasped his hands together and promised that she intended to invite him to any parties as her personal friend. He declined the first social under the guise of illness, apologizing that he would not see Sakura's new dress as it was intended and he would miss the company of Miss Daidouji and her irascible cousin. Tomoyo accepted the apology with a knowing smile the next time he visited, and let it slip that Kurogane had not been in attendance that night either anyway.

When Sakura’s lessons were finished, he would often spend time in the garden, where Yukito was most often found tending his vegetables for future meals or pruning the swath of rosebushes that bordered the green area. He could pass hours there in the weeds with Yukito, staining his old trousers brown with mulch and fertilizer, letting the soft earth fall through his fingers as he repotted another flower. They discussed recipes Fai had learned while abroad and local specialties Yukito knew by heart, how much water the plants would need and projections for summer heat, the never-ending threat of weeds or parasites in their little green kingdom. Touya or Sakura might drift in and out to watch or offer tea and a snack or join in on conversations. Sometimes Nadeshiko would come to cut roses for her vases inside the house, which always made Fai freeze there in the dirt and his own self-consciousness, allowing Yukito to carry the gentle conversation until the moment had passed.

He discovered the stablehand Sakura was enamored with did odd jobs all around the estate, and took great delight in teaching him how to cook Sakura’s favorite dishes. If Sakura was obliviously unsubtle about her affection for him, Syaoran was no better, and it was easy for Fai to make requests of him that resulted in the young lovebirds spending time together, or making time in his lesson plans for Sakura to go practice her horse riding with him.

Most of all he treasured the evenings when he could go walking along the expansive grounds and wander as the sun sank beyond the horizon, marveling at the feeling of bare feet on green grass, and the smell of spring flowers, and the warmth of the fading light. He wore long dresses when the weather was good to feel the cloth sweeping around his ankles, and trousers when it looked like rain but never brought an umbrella. When storms came, he let it soak him through, arriving back at the house with hair and coat skin dripping, sneaking inside through the kitchen with a wink for Syaoran, who almost always had fresh clean towels at the ready. Wanderlust had got him into trouble in a few cities, where following his feet down the wrong alley had unexpected consequences, or when he had gone so far he could not find his way back to his lodgings or any familiar landmarks - but the countryside offered no dangers other than the elements.

He didn’t speak of his wanderings, but he suspected that Syaoran had told Sakura, since Sakura had taken to commenting daily on the weather, sometimes more than once a day if she thought he might take a walk between lessons or instead of eating lunch. And she had apparently confessed this all to Tomoyo, as his last visit to the Daidoujis had seen him leave with an intricately painted parasol which she had intimated to be quite sturdy and serviceable even in a severe storm. It sat in one corner of his room against a bookshelf, untouched, so he could look at the delicate, cobalt blue hand-painted floral designs whenever he liked. But he was too careless and careful to bring something so precious into the world in his hands.

One evening, just before sunset, he sat with Sakura in the great room. She had hefted a big novel into her lap as she curled up just beneath the window, and had done poetic and ominous updates on the clouds as they rolled in. They were awaiting another delivery by Kurogane, the next set off clothes ready for alterations. When he did arrive and Sakura accosted him at the door with her usual suffocating hug, Fai slipped out the back in the commotion and headed for the woodsy area near the river at the edge of the property. If it did rain, there would be shelter in the trees and a guide in the river. He let the strong breeze carry him to the trees and the brush, flexing his bare toes as he strode across the grass, fully present in the darkening world if only for a little while. The day before while working in the garden, Yukito had mentioned a local variety of mushroom that would go perfectly in a sauce he remembered from his youth, a good dish to make for dinner the next night if he could find any in the woods.

He wove his way into the woods, through the underbrush and with no regard for any path, eyes on the ground before him for any sign of promising fungi. The fading light streamed through the leaves, and as it grew nearly too dark to see he began to give up any hope of finding them that night. If there were any on his way back, he never got the chance to look, because all at once a torrential downpour rolled in unlike any storm he’d experienced in Fairhaven so far. He had seen terrifying storms in his travels, in Nevers and at home, but the sudden onset and the rain combined with the stiff breeze turned roaring wind chilled him to the bone in moments and sent and old fear trembling through his chest and hands. Dusk was passed, all was dark, everything blurred and slick and dangerous.

The rainy darkness obscuring his vision, it was impossible to tell which way was the fastest way back to the Kinomoto house. He could hear - just barely - the faint sound of rushing water ahead, and he raced toward its source as fast as his feet could carry him, tripping over roots and fallen branches on his way, catching himself on rough tree trunks, trying to ignore the fiery cold in his feet and fingers. The river, if he could only find it, could lead him to _some_ kind of refuge, even if it didn’t bring him back to Sakura and the others; it ran along the border between several estates and was dotted with little sheds full of farm equipment or boathouses for summer days of drifting downstream.

He threw his hands up in front of him as he ran to brace against obstacles and trees in his way, and came upon the river so suddenly he tumbled down the little drop at the river’s edge before he knew what had happened. His feet left the ground - and then a fall - and then he found himself face-down in freezing water, struggling to right himself toward the sky and breathe, fighting a growing current downstream. The force of the rain added to the river carried him quickly downstream as he fought to dig in his heels and stand upright. It was not a deep river on any given day, but the riverbed was soft and silty. He tried to stay in place, but the waters came up to his shoulderblades and crashed around his ears as he slid down in the mud. Half blind, he blinked the water out of his eyes, coughing and sputtering, and tried to reach out and grab the muddy incline to haul himself up and out. His hands burned with cold fire as he scrambled for purchase in the riverbank, sensitive to temperature but unable to feel the texture of the earth or the sturdiness of this patch of rock or how how solid that area of mud was, invisible scars alight again with experience forcefully relived. He ignored the burning, the lack of sensation, and clawed his way up the little embankment to the other side - or the same side? There was no way of telling, now much further downstream and any trace of footprints from earlier washed away with the rain.

Shaking violently, he set out along the river, careful now to keep parallel to it and avoid falling in, one hand shielding his eyes to provide a precious little visibility and after some time found his way out of the little woods.

In the far distance, he spied a figure on horseback approaching him as he left the last of the straggling trees, and stopped in shock as he tried to work out why anyone would brave such a terrifying storm. The figure crested a small rolling hill ahead and seemed to grow larger and larger, too heavily cloaked to properly identify until the horse was only a few feet in front of him and the rider dismounted. Now closer to eye level, he could see Kurogane’s face beneath the hood. Fai’s right hand was still shielding his eyes, his left clutching his right elbow; he could not make his feet move any further. But the world lurched around him anyways as Kurogane hefted him onto the horse and Fai scrambled to hold on to the saddle or anything as the world spun and shifted around him. The horse moved, Kurogane leading them all at as fast a pace as he could manage holding the reins alongside the horse toward a little shack not but a few minutes ahead. Fai stared down at the horse’s neck, his fingers buried in its mane for what little steadiness his body was still capable of providing, and then found himself lifted down and coaxed into the shack by Kurogane who had just wrestled the door open.

Kurogane guided him by the shoulders into the little wooden building and set him down on the blessedly dry wooden floor before going back to retrieve his horse, which only barely made it through the doorway to lie down near the opposite wall. Between the supplies hanging along the far wall from the door and the horse near the front there was very little space to sit, though with knees drawn inward Fai had very little need to take up much of it. After shutting the door, Kurogane shed his heavy cloak and hung it on a hook on the wall by the door before kneeling directly in front of Fai.

His whole body wracked with tremors, teeth chattering, but able to see clearly for the first time, Fai realized they were sheltered in a little boathouse. There were two boats leaning against the far wall, oars and rope and other equipment hung next to them. Kurogane sat on his heels in front of him as Fai slowly processed his surroundings, the horse whinnying occasionally in the background. Kurogane looked at him too intensely for someone who had just experienced the same storm, too unaffected by the weather he had braved for reasons entirely inconceivable to Fai.

“You really are an idiot,” Kurogane said.

Fai stared back, his teeth chattering too violently for speech. He tugged his knees further into his body and tucked his chin over it to try and stop the shaking of his jaw and generate some kind of warmth, but his fingers were too numb and pained to keep them close, and his legs vibrated out of place before he had even drawn them fully in.

“I’m going to take off your jacket,” said Kurogane, enunciating slowly, and then he moved to push Fai’s trembling knees downward so he could get at the buttons at his chest, swiftly and clinically undoing them all so he could guide Fai’s trembling arms out of the sleeves. Fai’s shirt underneath was just as soaked, and distantly he saw Kurogane hesitate for a moment, jacket in one hand and his free hand on Fai’s shivering arm. That had moved toward his chest again, but it was only Kurogane balancing as he stood to hang Fai’s jacket on a hook next to his own cloak before returning to sit maddeningly close in front of Fai once more.

“Y-y- _you’re_ the s-s-stupid one,” Fai said, and bit his own tongue in the effort. Having the weight of the jacket removed had helped, but the shaking didn’t subside, the cold already soaked bone-deep.

Kurogane ignored his comment, and set about removing his own shirt, which was slightly damp but not soaking wet like Fai’s. He watched Fai’s face all the while, as if there were some solution or reason to be found there. “What were you doing out in that storm? Sakura told me you probably ran off and when the rain started she was so worried you’d get lost or catch pneumonia or die of frostbite before anyone found you. She said you always go walking _barefoot_. What the hell were you thinking?”

“I s-s-s-su _ppose_ ,” Fai  bit out, “I w-wasn’t thinking. At all.” He had been thinking of Kurogane waiting in the entryway, of escape, and of far away places; of mushrooms for dinner, of coming home - coming back to the Kinomotos with something useful. He had been thinking of Kurogane’s eyes fixating on his own during his last visit, even when Sakura was speaking, of the bareness of his room, of impermanence.

“You could have died,” Kurogane said, scornful and lofty enough to make a despicable heat rise in Fai’s stomach. “They were all waiting for you when I left. The whole house. Did you think they wouldn’t notice?”

He grabbed one of Fai’s wrists with his hand, and Fai jerked it away. Oversensitive, they burned with the first direct touch he’d had on them in weeks.

“ _Don’t_ ,” he hissed through clenched teeth, and clutched his hands to his chest.

Kurogane sat and watched impassively as Fai did his best to approximate a glare. “You have to warm up. I’m not letting you die out here because you’re too stupid to accept help when you need it.”

“Not _hands_ ,” said Fai, with great difficulty, his nose scrunched up and brow furrowed in concentration. A full body shudder traveled from his head to his toes and he jerked inward with the force of it. “Not my hands.”

“Alright.”

This time, when Kurogane moved, he undid the buttons of Fai’s shirt one-handed, slowly, and pried it off him like he had done with the jacket before, avoiding any contact with Fai’s hands as he slipped Fai’s arms out of the sleeves. Kurogane stretched it out flat on the floor beside him, and then removed his own shirt. Instead of laying it out to dry like he had Fai’s, he guided Fai’s arms into its sleeves, and folded the much broader front tightly around Fai’s torso. It was nearly dry and retained a little of Kurogane’s body heat. “You’ll warm up faster this way. It’ll help if your hair dries out.”

Fai looked down at his own legs, and saw Kurogane’s knees off to one side. He was suddenly aware of the mud and detritus matting his hair, not fully dislodged by the rain after his tumble in the river. He thought of Kurogane’s hands on his head and shivered. “Alright.”

Carefully, slowly, Kurogane guided Fai’s back away from the wall so that he was situated between Kurogane’s spread legs, Fai’s back close enough to Kurogane’s chest to feel the barest trace of radiating warmth.One by one Kurogane found the pins in his hair and it hung at the base of his neck, tangled and heavy, Kurogane’s hand between his neck and his hair to keep it from dripping down his back. Kurogane raked his fingers through the tangled mess of hair and mud from the undersides, pulling long, gentle strokes through the entire length of his hair. He worked his way up from the bottom, his dexterous fingers detangling snags and using his prosthetic to pluck leaves and twigs from the mess. Fai wondered if he had ever done this for Tomoyo, sat and brushed and braided her hair before a party or going out. Occasionally Fai shivered with the remnant chill or the brush of Kurogane’s knuckles against the nape of his neck, and Kurogane’s fingers would stall as the shivers subsided before resuming their rhythmic, steady pace.

When Kurogane’s fingers at last met no more resistance as they slid through his hair, he gathered it all together and steadying the low ponytail with his prosthetic hand at the base of Fai’s skull, wrung out the length of it slowly, never tugging, never pulling on his scalp, a welcome kindness and an intolerable frustration.

Afterward, he pulled Fai further back between his splayed legs to brace one arm against Fai’s chest. “Body heat will help,” he said unnecessarily. With Fai reclining and Kurogane straight-backed as ever, the top of Fai’s head rested just below Kurogane’s chin, and in his weakness Fai began to relax against Kurogane’s bare chest as his right hand rubbed softly but steadily along Fai’s upper arm and feeling slowly began to return to his skin. Slowly, the wracking shudders came further and further apart, his jaw no longer clattering audibly in the quiet between them.

“Is this what they teach you in military school?” Fai asked when he felt he could control his stuttering.

From this angle it was impossible to see Kurogane’s expression, but the hand on Fai’s arm didn’t stop. “You know it’s not.”

“Well, tell me a story then, keep me awake. Why were _you_ out in the storm?”

The hand on Fai’s arm moved to his chest, and rubbed slow circles there, migrating higher and higher until there were fingertips ghosting over his collarbones, just at the edge of Kurogane’s shirt. “To find you. I told you - we were all worried for you. Sakura was convinced you had died. I rode out to make sure you weren’t.”

“I’ve survived much worse, you know,” Fai said, increasingly aware that his back was pressed up against Kurogane’s naked chest. He was grateful for the thin layer of distance his shirt afforded; he wanted to strip out of it and be warmer, closer.

“Is that why you won’t let me touch your hands?”

Fai stiffened. “For someone so dense, you’re very observant, Colonel Cuddle,” he said. He rubbed his hands along his legs, in time with the circles Kurogane was tracing on his chest. “So contrary. I asked you to tell me a story and now you’re fishing for one from me. Where I come from, it’s very, _very_ cold. You don’t need to lecture me about the effects of frostbite or the damage the cold can do. I’ve learned my lesson already.”

Abruptly, Kurogane stopped rubbing Fai’s chest and it was all Fai could do not to _whine_ , pitiful and low, the sound caught in his throat before it could be pronounced, and Kurogane was turning him around so that Fai’s knees were tucked underneath him and Kurogane could wrap his left arm around Fai’s body to rub at his back, and grabbed Fai’s face with his right hand, tilting his chin up to force eye contact. Kurogane’s hand covered the entire length of his face, the side of his palm burning warmth back into his cheekbone and his fingertips resting just above the tip of Fai’s ear.

“You’re still freezing _now_ ,” he said, and did not move his hand.

Fai didn’t know what to do with his hands and arms now, trapped between Kurogane’s limbs as he was. Their shared warmth was too much to move away from, but when he lowered his eyes he was faced with Kurogane’s bare collarbones and chest, and dared not let his gaze drift further below for fear of what bare skin might reveal and haunt his dreams for nights to come.

“It doesn’t matter what happened back then,” Kurogane continued. When he sighed, Fai felt it travel along his own body. “For now, you’re deadly cold, and I won’t let you get sick and make all your friends cry over you because you died after wandering _barefoot_ in a _rainstorm_. I’m not - I’m not going to grab your hands if you tell me not to, but you’re going to warm up and then I’m going to take you back home and you’re going to be alright, whether you like it or not.”

Fai’s heart pounded and he felt it in every part of his body. He wondered if the thumping pulse traveled through the hand on his back or if Kurogane could feel the slight trembling of his chin, not at all from the cold. Tentatively, he brought his own hand to rest on the one Kurogane had against his face, and let himself focus on the dull warmth of another person against the skin of his palm, watching Kurogane’s Adam’s apple bob as he began to flex his fingers with the slow return of feeling there. Kurogane’s fingers beneath his own were large and well-worn, little points of roughness against his cheek.

“My hands,” he said, and stopped to breathe. “I can use them again.” To demonstrate, he slid his fingertips down the back of Kurogane’s palm, down the length of his forearm, along the curves of his upper arm, and to the leather strap that wound around his shoulder. He traced the line of the strap, back and forth. “What about your arm? Will it be damaged by the rain?”

He did not look at Kurogane’s face, but he knew that Kurogane was looking down at him. “Go ahead and take it off, then.”

Fai slipped the straps down Kurogane’s bicep, and Kurogane had to lower his hand from Fai’s face to let Fai guide down his arm entirely, the leather dragging along the curves of his muscles. Fai didn’t let go of the straps, guiding it behind Kurogane’s back until the loop on the opposite shoulder loosened. He lifted, with great effort, onto his knees to see better, leaning past Kurogane’s face to peer at the webbing, and passed the loop from his left hand to his right behind Kurogane’s neck, legs trembling with the strain of staying upright unassisted. For a moment he thought he imagined Kurogane’s fingertips at the hem of his shirt - of Kurogane’s shirt, on Fai’s body - but Kurogane was still sitting immobile, his breath warm against Fai’s ear. Fai slid the rest of the straps off Kurogane’s other arm, the Y-shaped thong drooping over the arm cuff on his upper arm, the mechanical hand now guiding the rest of the apparatus off his body entirely. Fai supported the prosthetic hand, now detached, with a hand of his own under its palm, When he settled back and crossed his legs between the cage of Kurogane’s thighs, the prosthetic in his lap, it appeared as if he were clasping Kurogane’s hand in his own.

Kurogane’s other hand returned to its place on Fai’s cheek, and Fai pulled his gaze away from the illusory intimacy in his lap. Suddenly he felt flushed, too warm for the first time in hours, exhausted with what little he had been capable of doing. Kurogane, he decided, had a horrible way of looking directly at everything, especially people. Especially at him. Frozen in that moment, Kurogane’s eyes never left his, not even as Kurogane’s thumb began tracing a gentle path along Fai’s cheekbone, slow and steady. An old claustrophobia threatened to wreck him, and he willed it further away with each rhythmic pass of Kurogane’s thumb along his face, matching his labored breathing to the lullaby motion. Kurogane’s thumbprint traced the bags under his eyes, skirting just shy of his eyelashes, and then drifted down alongside the slope of his nose, stopping right beside the corner of his mouth. Kurogane’s hand was warm and broad; his thumb at Fai’s mouth, his palm spanned Fai’s neck and his fingertips rested again at the top of Fai’s spine against his loose, combed-out hair.

He opened his mouth to speak and like gravity Kurogane moved as if to trace his lips - but the gravity of that gesture dragged Fai’s head down, bowed his neck and eyes with the weight of it all. Instead of words, he produced only quiet laughter. Kurogane’s fingers tightened around his hair.

“You should really take better care of your things, Colonel Chevalier,” he said around bursts of hiccuping, silent laughter.

There was a long pause. “I am,” said Kurogane. His hand did not move, not even as the laughter and hiccups grew stronger, as Fai folded inwards and clutched the wooden hand in his lap tighter, as Fai’s laughter filled the whole of the little boathouse and Kurogane’s horse began to stir from its near slumber, as it tapered out again and until Fai rested in on his own knees at the last heaving silent breath of it with a cough.

This was Kurogane - unmoving, immovable. This moment, terminally unsustainable, out of time and space there in the cage of Kurogane’s long limbs, Fai’s fingers locked around wooden ones. It was too much, and not at all enough. He sat there for long minutes, only breathing, committing the draping bagginess of Kurogane’s shirt - the smooth wood against his fingers - the fingers in his hair - the sound of rain, slowing - the soft, heavy breath of the horse in the background - the smell of old wood, of wet earth, of Kurogane’s skin - a thousand inconsequential details committed to memory, which had proved to be far more enduring than any lived reality.

But then, an interminable wait later, Kurogane’s hand at his neck drew him closer to rest against Kurogane’s chest, and Kurogane’s fingers resumed their habitual slow circles against Fai’s scalp. When Fai slept, still cradled in Kurogane’s arms, he dreamt of fingers in his hair, the warmth of another person beside him, the light pitter-patter of rain around him, and did not dream of the past at all.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Stay with me,” said Fai. His fingers found the crook of Kurogane’s elbow under the blankets. “Please.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's 2am on a Thursday, which means this is only a few hours late and not like, several months. (Haha.) I do still intend to complete this, despite how crazy busy my life has been of late, and I have begun writing the next chapter. Thanks to [Kate](hvglowmp3.tumblr.com) and [Rusty](cantescapeclamp.tumblr.com) for their proofreading/critiques of the final draft, and especially to [Rob](flovvright.tumblr.com) for their invaluable input at every stage of writing this.

V.

After the storm, Kurogane went to the city on business, as well as to get away from Fai. Tomoyo loaned him the carriage and in return made him promise to convey her most sincere well-wishes to his parents and her sister and their friends there. He tried to at least doze off on the long journey, but the gently rolling countryside outside the window reminded him of searching for Fai in the rain the day before, of the ache in his bones from the cold and the feeling of leather straps slipping off his back.

Alone with only his thoughts and the rumbling of the wheels, it was difficult to avoid thinking about that, and about what had followed. He had ridden back to the house with Fai securely in front of him on his horse, and when they arrived he had cradled Fai in his arms, passing off the horse to Syaoran. Sakura had trailed behind him, fluttering at his shoulders as she tried to examine Fai’s condition without disturbing him, pretending her teartracks were only the rain that had caught on her face when she had run outside to greet them.

She had led them through the back of the house to a rickety staircase and waved Kurogane up to where Fai lived. He bit back a comment about the Kinomoto’s accommodations for their employee, but with Sakura having rushed off for some water and soap and a towel he was deprived of any hypothetical audience other than a delirious man who wouldn’t listen even if he could. He suspected the shabby renovation of what he had once known as Fujitaka’s study was Fai’s own doing. The only place to put Fai was in his bed, which was pushed up against the one bookless wall where the desk once stood, and penned in by a little side table that had no chair. In its past life the small space had seemed cozy, but now Kurogane felt too large even in the emptiness. He stood by Fai’s bedside waiting for Sakura to come back, listening for footsteps in the quiet and watching Fai’s face contort as he struggled to stay awake. He hadn’t spoken at all since they had left the boathouse, and only then an agreement to leaving when Fai had awoken again.

Sakura returned out of breath and with supplies, but before Kurogane could take his leave she was gone again, promising to let Fai rest after he’d been taken care of. With nowhere to sit and Fai’s feet at risk of bleeding all over his bedspread, there was nothing else to do: he coaxed Fai into sitting upright on the edge of the bed and then knelt before him, and took the soapy rag to Fai’s feet and slowly washed off the mud and cleaned out the abrasions and cuts there. Fai watched silently, with alarming clarity. When Kurogane had finished he slipped his foot out of Kurogane’s gentle grasp and said that he was going to sleep.

So Kurogane had left the small room and the small town, flesh and blood hand burning with the memory of Fai’s skin against his, turning the distance between them into miles and roads and counties.

In the city, it was easier to let himself be distracted, caught up in the overwhelming sensations of city living. Gingetsu was sympathetic in his quiet way when Kurogane visited for dinner the night he arrived, though his sometimes-flatmate who lived in the apartment when Gingetsu was away was obnoxiously less so.

“You’re going soft,” crowed Kazuhiko as he stabbed his dinner with a fork and waved the utensil around like a conductor’s baton as he spoke. “A few months in the country and you’re already lost in the civilian world of parties and scandals and farm life.” He pointed  his fork at Kurogane across the table. “Give it another month and you’ll come begging to me for advice on what to wear to the next dance.”

This, thought Kurogane, was extremely unfair, given he had only talked about Tomoyo’s dressmaking and the sheep problems and anything other than the Kinomoto’s new tutor.

“As if I’d ever go to you for advice,” said Kurogane, glaring primarily at Kazuhiko but also at Gingetsu for inclining his head at the angle that always indicated he found whatever was happening amusing, though the famously stone-faced officer never showed it in his expression. However, it was unfortunately true that Kazuhiko was his best resource on where to find a decent girdler for new prosthetic parts, given that Kazuhiko had also lost his rank and his hand during military service. That Kazuhiko had been stupid enough to lose it in a duel and had been discharged entirely instead of put on half-pay did not make the need to get advice from him sting any less.

“Speaking of advice, Kazuhiko and I were talking yesterday about what girdlers we use,” said Gingetsu while looking directly at Kazuhiko. Kurogane immediately forgave him, because this got Kazuhiko talking about useful things, and also about military matters which Kurogane  _ actually _ cared about, and eventually some matter about a cigarette case of Gingetsu’s that Kurogane did not and most of which he tuned out.

Gingetsu even accompanied him to order new prosthetic parts and then to talk to the army’s administrative office to claim  his pay and discuss raising funds to acquire a promotion, all talk of which tended to infuriate Kurogane. What the use was of moving up in what was at best a pity regiment for the unfortunate disabled who would never again see any chance of active service, Kurogane couldn’t fathom. Gingetsu’s presence was sufficiently intimidating even with his trademark silence to keep that talk at a minimum at least. He suspected that Gingetsu might even have quietly followed him to dinner with his parents if not explicitly denied.  “Go mother Kazuhiko instead,” Kurogane said as they left the office. Gingetsu looked at him impassively through his dark-tinted glasses. “I’m just going to see my parents. Your terrible flatmate is definitely going to get into more trouble without you than I am. I’ll see you next time I’m in town.”

“As you like,” responded Gingetsu. He only nodded instead of offering a handshake or a claustrophobic hug as parting gesture when he left Kurogane at his parents’ door.

It turned out Kurogane was right about that, too; dinner with his parents was always easier as it happened than his anticipation of it. His mother showed off the intricately carved cane Tomoyo had sent her in the mail since his last visit, which was rarely used when his father was in the room, staying leaned against a corner like the memory of Fai’s painted parasol. She was in good spirits if not the best health, and laughed as his father clapped him on the back with one strong broad hand so like his own, and carried their conversation. Guilt did not come easy to him when his parents made it so easy for him to be the reticent grown man their excitable, energetic son had become. He had spent too many years trying to be more like his father, like his mother, sociable and at ease, to not accept their gentle understanding now. 

They asked him little about life in the countryside other than prompts from Tomoyo’s letters. In return he made an effort to ask about his father’s adventures in retirement to hear stories which doubled as fatherly advice on life post-military, and about his mother’s various social engagements which she made far more entertaining in the telling than they would have been for Kurogane to attend. He found time to laugh, to be laughed at, to help his mother with her window boxes full of Sweet Williams and to discuss with his father what he had learned from Kazuhiko about prosthetics.

“Like father, like son,” said his mother when she found them both in his father’s study, his father’s wooden hand and his own arm and harness laying out on the desk before them, some pieces of each disassembled during their discussion. Her own hands trembled a little as she set teacups before them, but when Kurogane pulled a chair over for her she moved with as much grace as she always had, smiling as she sipped her drink and let her family talk shop as she rested there.

It was only a little difficult to tear himself away as the evening waned further into night, kissing his mother’s cheek and letting his father envelop him warmly before letting him back out into the streets. The warmth of it all stayed with him on the long journey back to the Daidouji estate, the ride home passing far more peacefully than the trip to the city had as he watched the dark outline of the countryside roll along outside the carriage window.

When he finally arrived late in the night, everything was dark and everything was quiet. He made his way inside with memory’s map, following the ghost of his youth up the great staircase and down the long corridors to the room that had always been his. This house, even after many years away, was as familiar as his own body, and he made it to his room silently with only a small candle to put his belongings away by.

His trunk laid away and his night clothes on, he was just about to extinguish the candle that dimly illuminated the room when he heard a sound in the hallway. It was nearly imperceptible, almost like the way the old house breathed and sighed in the long hours of the night, but it was followed by other sounds growing louder as they multiplied, like footsteps on creaking floorboards.

Kurogane stilled and after a moment blew the candle out. Bathed again in the darkness, he moved with practiced deliberation to his door and pushed it slowly open. Tomoyo had the master bedroom on the first floor, and with Amaterasu and his own parents in the city, there was no one else who inhabited the old bedrooms on the second floor. Slowly, he leaned around the doorway to peek out into the hall, which led from the staircase landing and wound toward the back of the house. At the far end he could see a ghostly, shimmering white figure swaying down the hall with drunken instability. He stepped out of his room and silently tailed the wayward soul at a distance through the hall to the balcony out back, and then the figure disappeared around the corner, through the balcony doors and out of sight.

He slinked closer; back against the walls until he was facing the big back doors, which were still thrown wide open.

“You might as well come on out,” said a frighteningly familiar voice. “You’re not that sneaky, Sir Shadow.”

Crossing the threshold, Kurogane could now see in the moonlight what darkness had obscured before: it was Fai, dressed in a long white nightgown and nearly as pale as his clothes. He shivered in the cool night air, eyes unfocusing as he cupped his trembling hand closer around the flame of the candlestick he was holding, which had given him the shimmering effect as he had swayed around the house and which did little good now in the outdoors with the full moon shining so brightly.

“What in the world are you doing here?” said Kurogane, voice rough with fatigue and shock.

Fai smiled. His cheeks were bright red in contrast to the unusual paleness of his skin. “I could ask you the same.”

Kurogane took one faltering step toward Fai, but stopped himself with his hand frozen in midair just out of Fai’s reach. “I live here.”

“And Tomoyo says so do I, until I’m well again.” Fai laughed softly but it threatened to become a hacking cough, candle flame nearly sputtering out as his body shook. “Apparently getting caught in the rain has consequences! Like becoming frightfully ill when you go to see your good friend the next day.”

“That doesn’t explain why you’re out  _ here _ ,” said Kurogane.

Fai was leaning against the balcony with his back to the sky. The moonlight cascading behind him tangled itself in the strands of his hair like a glowing white halo. “It felt like fire.”

Kurogane narrowed his eyes. He had no shirt and no prosthetic, having intended to go straight to sleep, but spring had not yet grown into summer and it was only slightly cool in the house. He stepped forward again to lay the back of his hand against Fai’s brow, which was soaked with sweat and radiating heat. “You’re burning up. You should be in bed.”

“I’ve spent the last three days there.” Kurogane’s hand was shaken off as Fai attempted to retreat further backward, though he only managed to bend awkwardly over the balcony. “I’d go back now but I don’t think I know the way. Your home is so big and empty. Is that why you left?”

“I had business in the city.”  _ You’re one to talk about leaving _ , Kurogane did not say. “Had to go see some obnoxious people and get my pay from the army.”

“Have to make them pay,” said Fai, nodding sharply. “City ghosts are far more obnoxious than country ones, but they’re really harmless. I can’t imagine they’d be receptive to your quaint charms, so no wonder you’d find them troublesome. I could translate for you the next time you go instead. And then I wouldn’t have to keep the lonely spirits company in this hollow place.”

Kurogane paused and scowled. Conversations with Fai were always double-edged and headache-inducing at best, but fever made it nearly impossible to discern the truths from the telling lies. “What, are you volunteering to go along with me and show me how it’s done?”

Fai’s eyes widened, his long eyelashes fluttering. “I’ll go and teach you,” he began to say, and then a soft gust of wind extinguished the candle. Instead of finishing the thought he looked down at it in surprise, straightening and raising his hand as if he could catch the wind and bring the flame back. The movement threw him off-balance and he lurched forward, collapsing onto Kurogane’s chest. Kurogane caught him at the small of his back with his good hand, tucking his elbow under fai’s right arm to try and keep him mostly upright as Fai sagged bonelessly down again, fingers grasping weakly at the sides of Kurogane’s arms.

“It’s a good thing the candle went out,” he said, “or else something might have happened to your house. Your big, beautiful house.” He breathed heavily, his face against Kurogane’s chest. “You should take care of a house this beautiful, even if it’s so empty.”

“You’re going right back to bed. Up,” said Kurogane as Fai murmured further delirious, incoherent comments about the architecture. He slid his hand down the back of Fai’s thighs and bent his knees, then picked Fai up to cradle him in one arm. “Come on, put your arms around my neck and help me out a little. Come on.”

Fai, surprisingly, did as told, though his weakness provided no extra support and his murmurings grew less comprehensible as they lowered in volume. It was easy to lift Fai up and leave the balcony for the darkness of the hallway, even with Fai’s head tucked in the crook of his shoulder, with Fai’s hands brushing his shoulder blades as he swayed with each step. How to move was harder, with Fai a welcome but dead weight in his arms and no clue to where Fai had been sleeping, and with the exhaustion of the day’s journey taking its toll. There were enough empty rooms on the second floor alone that the thought of investigating them all made Kurogane tired enough to let Fai slip a little further down in his arms, sagging against his chest. So he carried Fai back to his own room.

It was easy to find his bed in the dark, and harder to lay Fai across the sheets, sweeping his undone hair from behind his neck, unsure how to balance Fai’s comfort with his own at arranging Fai’s limbs while he was barely conscious.

He found his own candle on the dresser near the door, lit it again, and brought it back to his bedside. Fai was even paler in the lamplight than he had appeared on the balcony, the yellowish glow of the flame not nearly as kind as the white glow of the moon. He breathed slowly, laboriously, mouth hanging slightly open, lips moving occasionally as if to speak, but even in the overwhelming silence Kurogane heard no noise. All was still, save for his own presence at the edge of his bed and Fai laying upon it. He put out the light and in setting it on the bedside table realized he ought to have drawn up a chair, and had to relight it to move over the one stiff-backed chair that usually saw use as a coat rack.

He considered his options as he paused next to the chair, staring at Fai. It was either too late or too early to wake Tomoyo and ask for her advice, and he had no intention of going to fetch her or make tea or do anything that would give Fai time to wake up and wander off and fall of the balcony or something even worse while unsupervised.

Also, he was running out of matches.

“Hey, Flowright.”

No response from Fai, no acknowledgement - only the fluttering of eyelashes, a sharp and heavy sigh. Kurogane reached out to brush the back of his hand against Fai’s forehead and found it no cooler than before. There was still a washbasin and handkerchief in the corner with a half-empty pitcher nearby. He got up to soak and wring out the handkerchief in what little water the pitcher had left, and came back and laid it across Fai’s forehead like his mother had done for him as a child. At the cool contact, Fai’s eyes opened again in a flash, and his breathing quickened.

“Flowright. Hey. Hey!” Kurogane laid a hand on his trembling shoulder. Fai turned his head to stare through Kurogane, as if there were someone else just over his shoulder.

If there were ghosts behind him that only Fai could see or hear, it didn’t matter. Kurogane was real, he was present, and ghosts were only echoes of an irrelevant past. He leaned forward to shield Fai from the things he could not understand, and did not look back.

“I have to go,” croaked Fai, and suddenly Kurogane regretted wasting the only water he had on the handkerchief.

“You’re staying right here,” he said, pressing down more firmly on Fai’s shoulder. “Stay here and sleep.”

Fai tried to move up, to peer around Kurogane’s torso, but he could not overcome the gentle strength of Kurogane’s hand on his arm. “The damp - the firedamp, I need to go outside -” he swung his right arm up to clasp Kurogane’s hand with his own - “and you have to come with me. It’ll fire any moment.”

Kurogane caught Fai’s hand under his own and pinned it to his shoulder, slotting each of his fingers between Fai’s, his broad palm entirely eclipsing the one underneath it. Fai wrapped his free hand around Kurogane’s wrist to weakly tug it away. “You fainted. You can’t go anywhere and if you just  _ sleep _ you’ll feel better in the morning.”

“I’m a  _ canary _ ,” said Fai in a tone that managed to imply not only his usual disdain for Kurogane’s intelligence despite his feebleness. “It’s the gas and that means we have to turn out the light right now and go -”

“Fai.”

For the first time, Fai stopped searching for whatever unseen thing haunted him and looked at Kurogane directly, wild-eyed. Kurogane ignored the unfamiliar feeling that rose up in him in response and extricated himself from Fai’s grasp to rise and put out the lamp one last time. Fai struggled upright but when the light was gone and all was dark, Kurogane sat back down not in his seat but on the edge of the bed and used Fai’s upward momentum to shift him nearer to the center. Kurogane picked up the damp handkerchief that had fallen off Fai’s face while the shock of being manhandled quieted Fai temporarily as he struggled to understand what was going on. Kurogane then pulled the bedspread up and over Fai’s legs from where it had been folded at the end of the bed.

Fai reached up with one arm uncertainly, and Kurogane caught Fai’s hand again with his own and interlocked their fingers once more, lowering both their hands to the bed. He kept his grip sure, his arm still, turning every fault of mulishness and inflexibility and strictness into a single virtue of strength. Kurogane had little practice at being kind or gentle, but for Fai, drowning in the vastness of his fever, he could become a rock, a stable place to rest.

“You’re here,” he said, and stopped. He squeezed Fai’s hand a little tighter. It was easier to convey what he knew through touch than through words, but there was no room for miscommunication, for missed significance. “You’re here, in my bed, in Tomoyo’s house, with me, and it’s late. There’s no gas, and no fires. We’re going to sleep, and in the morning Tomoyo will know what to do and you’ll be better, and you’ll wake up and you’ll still be here.”

It was harder to tell now, but Kurogane could see that Fai was looking for something still in the blackness of the night. Fai squeezed his hand once, as tightly as it seemed he could manage, and Kurogane realized Fai was searching for  _ his _ face in the dark.

“Will you?” Fai asked, quiet and childlike, when he at last found Kurogane’s eyes with his own.

“Will I what?”

“Be here,” Fai said, so softly that it was difficult to tell whether it was meant as question or command.

In either case, Kurogane could not deny him something so simple and so obvious. “Of course I’ll be here. It’s  _ my _ room and  _ my _ bed.”

“You too, then,” he replied, lifting up the bedspread with his free hand to let Kurogane under it with him.

Kurogane swung his legs onto the bed and let Fai fuss with the bedspread since he had no way of grasping it while holding Fai’s hand. Fai tried to pull it all the way up to Kurogane’s neck even though the effort was futile as Fai himself was in the way, and the covers were not quite long enough. When Fai was satisfied with tucking him in as best he could, he settled back at last. Kurogane curled his fingers tighter and then let go so he could roll onto his side and face the edge of the bed to give Fai room. As he began to move, he heard Fai inhale sharply and he felt a light touch at his back that would have startled him had he not already been so entirely tense. Fingertips crept up his side to rest on his arm.

“Stay with me,” said Fai. His fingers found the crook of Kurogane’s elbow under the blankets. “Please.”

There was a pause as Kurogane searched for the words that so often failed, so that he could make Fai understand, but then Fai’s fingertips retreated and he was alone once more. 

For the first time that night, Kurogane was angry. He had played at anger upon finding Fai on his balcony, had been irritated with Fai’s carelessness, had channeled his fear of what could happen to Fai in his absences into familiar banter that he had not yet realized was familiar. But he had not been truly angry until Fai pulled away from him, as if he believed Kurogane would be so coldhearted as to deny him simple comfort - as if Kurogane would not want to be there to keep him safe. And he was angry with himself for being angry with Fai, who was barely conscious and in no state to be sure of anything, much less the feelings that Kurogane himself did not always fully understand.

It was, of course, useless to be angry something over he could not yet change. He collected himself as Fai shuffled backward to the center of the bed, and then let himself roll back in the other direction. Fai had flipped over when he moved, face now directly into the pillow as if he had passed out again, although he was gripping the bed sheets too tightly in his closed fists to be asleep.

“Of course I’ll stay,” he said, too gruff with t he weight of suppressed emotion.

Fai turned his face toward Kurogane, still half-buried in the pillow, and Kurogane realized that they were closer than he had thought they were. With Fai’s elbows tucked into his sides and Kurogane rolled onto his own, their faces were only inches away.  Fai’s one visible eye was nearly all he could make out in the darkness.

The fever and exhaustion might have been the cause, but ever after in Kurogane’s memory, Fai’s answering, honest crescent moon smile that wrinkled the edges of his eyes was clear as day.

 

Kurogane awoke disoriented and aching just after dawn to a commotion from downstairs. More immediately pressing than the slow, unpleasant realization that he should begin dressing and receive whatever guests had come to pester him was the unpleasant realization that he had none of the bed covers, and that Fai was now cocooned face-down in the entire bed’s worth of them, directly against Kurogane’s left side. The weight over his left shoulder and arm that seemed to be the right half of Fai’s body, though it was difficult to tell with the layers of fabric between body and body.

He slowly pulled his arm from the beneath the blanket bundle and got out of bed to get dressed, forgoing his prosthetic in favor of dealing with whatever business was going on downstairs. Fai didn’t stir, only murmuring slightly as he pulled away, his monopoly of the bedspread protecting him from any jostling Kurogane might have done to him. Once dressed Kurogane spared one last look at Fai, returning to the bed to make sure Fai was still asleep. He swept back Fai’s long hair from around his face, which was still mostly pressed into the pillow and shrouded in the covers, making it difficult to tell whether Fai was still as feverish as he had been the night before.

“Mm,” Fai said, leaning into Kurogane’s fingers.

It was best to let Fai sleep, even if Kurogane wanted nothing more than to curl up next to Fai without even bothering to strip out of his clothes again, to throw his arm over Fai and suffer the chill air if it meant Fai could continue sleeping peacefully with all Kurogane had to give him. So he pulled away and left his room without looking back.

Down the grand staircase, he found Tomoyo with the visitors who were the source of the commotion. They hadn’t made it past the foyer in their excitement, and in front of Tomoyo as he descended Kurogane spied Sakura and Syaoran, visibly damp and being coddled with towels and what appeared to be a tea set on one of the tables in the foyer.

“He’s been delirious for the past day or so,” confided Tomoyo as she toweled down Sakura’s hair. “I’m sure seeing you would lift his spirits but it’s still so early that I hope if he’s asleep he stays asleep.”

With Tomoyo behind her and Syaoran watching concernedly, forgetting the towel in his own hands he could have been using to dry himself off, Sakura spotted Kurogane on the staircase first. She started to raise her arms in surprise, but remembered that Tomoyo was attached to her hair and glanced over at Syaoran.

“Oh!” he said, and almost dropped his unused towel in surprise.

Tomoyo leaned around Sakura’s shoulder to smile at Kurogane unperturbed. “Welcome home.”

“What is all of  _ this _ ,” Kurogane said.

“Is Fai alright?” said Sakura. “Have you seen him? We came to check on him since he hasn’t been home since he got sick here - I couldn’t come alone so Syaoran agreed to come with me which was really nice of him. But Tomoyo was saying Fai needs to sleep and I agree but we’re all very worried. Is he okay?”

“Uh,” said Kurogane, and looked from Sakura’s eager face to Syaoran’s worried one and then back to Tomoyo, who was still smiling serenely. “That idiot’s asleep. I woke up when I heard you shouting but I only got back late last night. I don’t know what’s going on. Does your family know you two are here? If Syaoran took you how the hell did you get here?”

Apparently satisfied with Sakura’s hair, Tomoyo began folding the towel and came forward to place a condescending, gentle hand on Kurogane’s arm. “You won’t tell on them for walking here, cousin dearest, will you? They’re just worried about Fai.”

Kurogane scowled down at Tomoyo, who was always too cheerful in the early hours of the morning. He leveled his glare next at Syaoran and Sakura - though mostly the latter, as Syaoran still seemed frozen in his terror - and resisted the urge to rub his temple with his hand to stave off the oncoming headache. “You two do realize that he got sick  _ exactly _ by wandering off in the rain without telling anyone and all the trouble that caused.”

“I took Syaoran with me!” said Sakura, almost the perfect picture of her younger self as she stomped her foot and grabbed Syaoran’s hand. “Touya wouldn’t take me in the rain and everyone else was busy so I asked Syaoran and we held hands the whole walk over to make sure neither of us fell or got lost or anything. It’s not the same at all!”

A lifetime’s experience honing his stoicism was the only thing that kept Kurogane from visibly reacting to the series of expressions Syaoran’s face went through.

“I couldn’t let her go alone,” Syaoran said, wringing the towel in his hands and glancing from Tomoyo’s reassuring gaze to Kurogane’s exasperated one. He seemed to be waiting for the other shoe to drop, and more than ever Kurogane wished he were back in bed.

“Of course not,” said Kurogane. “So you decided the best way to avoid ending up like your idiot tutor was to go off without letting anyone know before anyone else got up but to  _ hold hands _ on the way over?”

Sakura went pink. “When you put it like that,” she said, and stopped. “You’re not being very kind to Fai. He canceled lessons early the day you left and wouldn’t let me make him tea or keep him company or anything because he knew he was getting sick I bet. And he went to see Tomoyo anyway because he always visits her every week! If you’d seen Fai since the storm you’d understand. I thought you were his friend.”

There was nothing quite so like being lectured on friendship by a child in front of an audience of children. Sakura appeared to be near tears now, and Tomoyo began rubbing her back soothingly. Kurogane didn’t have the words to explain that he  _ had  _ seen Fai; that they had slept together; that he had stayed awake in the darkness long after Fai’s breathing had slowed to a steady sleeping pace keeping watch over this stupid, stupid man; that he was not Fai’s friend, exactly, but he would like to have one honest conversation with Fai about what they were. 

“I just don’t want you ending up like that idiot upstairs,” he said instead, a vision of Fai half-delirious and fearing explosions and ghosts plaguing him. “We’re not running a Kinomoto-and-friends hospital here and Touya will have my head if I don’t figure out a way to return the two of you before everyone starts panicking.”

“What he’s  _ saying _ ,” Tomoyo interrupted, “is he’s worried for all three of you and he wants you to stay safe and healthy because he’s so soft-hearted.” She gently gripped Sakura and Syaoran’s shoulders, standing like a bridge between them with her infuriatingly patient and conniving smile.

“Excuse me, what I’m  _ saying _ is that Flowright is a terrible example for kids to be following -”

The moment he began to speak, there was a noise along the staircase and a voice called out, “Miss Daidouji, I had the  _ strangest _ dream last night -” But whatever dream Fai had come to recount was cut short as he caught the tail end of what Kurogane had said at the exact moment Kurogane realized they were speaking over each other. In perfect synchronicity each of them stopped, humiliated by the other’s unexpected audience. 

Kurogane wheeled around in his shameful surprise and found Fai leaning heavily on the railing, staring down at the scene below. He looked a far sight better in the morning light, even though his hair was still tangled and cascading over one shoulder, his nightgown still wrinkled as he lifted his skirts to keep the hem from dragging on the stairs. Everything about him looked half-undone and yet Kurogane could see a little more color in his cheeks, less swaying in his stature, and the unfortunate realization that Fai was lucid enough to be visibly wounded by either finding Kurogane material and not a dream or what he had overheard. He stared at Kurogane for an endless few seconds, then looked to the three children, and when his gaze returned to Kurogane he slipped on his bright, blank, artificial smile while maintaining eye contact. 

“Hello darlings,” he said to the small crowd. As he reached the bottom Kurogane moved to offer his arm to help steady Fai, but Fai breezed right past him without sparing even a glance so he could go envelop a visibly relieved Sakura and then a fairly startled Syaoran in a hug. “It’s good to see you both.”

“I’m so glad to see you too,” said Sakura, still hanging onto Fai’s sleeve even after the hug ended. “I know it was bad to leave without telling anyone but I had to make sure you were alright.”

“And I promised to keep her safe,” said Syaoran, braver when standing up to Fai’s gentle acceptance.

Kurogane snorted. “The safest thing to do would have been to stay home and convince someone to bring you over in a carriage or on horseback.”

“I appreciate the concern, but you shouldn’t make your families worry just because I’ve caught a little cold. You shouldn’t have to worry yourselves about taking care of me, either. I made a promise to take care of you too when I became your tutor - even while I’m not there. It’d be silly for you to risk embarrassment and breaking a promise over something as trivial as this,” Fai said, but he was for the first time since he entered the foyer looking Kurogane directly in the eyes. 

_ Be there _ , the memory of Fai’s voice echoed.

There was no explanation Kurogane could give there in that room; he hadn’t had the words when Fai was absent, and with him there even his vague protests were not enough. He could not explain that he had only wanted to keep Fai safe any more than he could get Fai to acknowledge whatever unsteady steps they were now dancing.

“Look, I know you had good reasons to leave,” he began with a sigh, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. He could not look at Fai while trying to talk back in code. “You just wanted the best for him and you weren’t thinking about how your actions could be upsetting. All there is to do now is try and fix what you’ve done and deal with the consequences.”

Tomoyo looked in surprise from Kurogane to Fai, and back again. Whatever she saw in Fai’s reaction made her smile that slow mischievous look she’d perfected during his years away, and she clapped her hands together. “Why don’t I make us all some tea, and we can talk a little before we send Fai back to bed to rest and we have Kurogane take us to return you two while your family is still none the wiser.”

“Tea sounds lovely right now,” said Fai, who took Sakura’s hand and squeezed it tightly once. She beamed up at him, all her tears forgotten. “Let me go find my proper clothes and I’ll join you just in time to drink it. You go and help Tomoyo and then you can catch me up on all that I’ve missed.”

“Kurogane, do help Fai with whatever he needs. We’ll be waiting in the parlor.” Tomoyo motioned toward the door to her right. “Come on, you two, let’s set things up.” Sakura and Syaoran followed Tomoyo out, leaving Kurogane and Fai alone in the big, empty foyer.

With the children gone, Fai began to sag, no longer performing the illusion of health for them. Still facing the front door, his back was turned to Kurogane, and it was difficult to discern but his shoulders were shaking. 

Kurogane stepped toward him again, ready to catch Fai if he were to fall, and said, “Fai -”

Fai turned around and smiled. “Thank you, Colonel Suwa. I’m doing much better, and I can find my temporary room just fine now. Don’t wait on me.”

Kurogane watched Fai slowly walk away, waiting until Fai had disappeared up the staircase and vanished entirely from sight before moving toward the foyer to join Tomoyo, Sakura, and Syaoran in the parlor. Fai didn’t look back as he left, but Kurogane paused in the doorway to look back over his shoulder one last time, and seeing no sign of Fai, left.


End file.
